Unlike most coaches of major clubs who more often hold on to the glory of their predecessors, Antonio Conte chooses another far more difficult path. He opts for "babat alas" (forest clearance).
By
Yulvianus Harjono
·6 minutes read
For the football coach from Italy, Antonio Conte, 51, victory and glory constitute the main goal of his life. Unsurprisingly, his child is named Vittoria,13, meaning victor. Various champion titles always accompany the footsteps of Conte wherever his adventures may be.
The latest champion title was won along with Inter Milan. The club dubbed I Nerazzurri (black and blue) was established as the winner of the Italian League’s Serie A title for the first time in 11 years. Inter’s 19th scudetto (Italian for “little shield”) affirmed the competence of Conte who had previously accorded league champion titles to Juventus and English club Chelsea.
Unlike most coaches of major clubs who more often hold on to the glory of their predecessors, Conte chooses another far more difficult path. He opts for babat alas (forest clearance). As he has done with Juve and Chelsea, Conte opened a new path toward success when Inter had long got lost in a dense jungle, symbolic of an era without achievements and identity.
Unlike most coaches of major clubs who more often hold on to the glory of their predecessors, Conte chooses another far more difficult path.
Before Conte’s presence at Appiano Gentile, Inter’s headquarters on the outskirts of Milan, La Beneamata (the beloved club) had invited many coaches to restore their supremacy like in the period from 1990 to the 2000s. A total of 11 trainers had come to Inter since their last glory by winning the treble (three titles in a season) in the era of Jose Mourinho in 2010. The world-class coaches were among others Rafael Benitez, Roberto Mancini and Gian Piero Gasperini.
However, none of them could manage to offer any achievement. Their highest attainment in the past decade in the Italian League, before Conte showed up at Gentile in the early 2019-2020 season, was finishing as a runner-up in 2011 with Benitez. Inter lost its identity as a respected team in Italy and one that won five scudetto trophies in succession from 2006 to 2010. Over the last decade, they have more frequently finished outside the big four.
I showed the way and they fully trusted in me. In the end, we found the path
Therefore, Conte faced a very tough challenge when he first handled Inter in 2019. He had to inculcate the mentality of a champion, which was very unfamiliar to the squad of Inter players at the time. Of the 24 members of the Inter squad, only half-back Arturo Vidal had once experienced league champion titles with Juve, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.
“Conte deserved a lot of praise for this achievement. He was a winner as a player and he\'s a winner as a coach. He\'s imparted some great values onto the players,” said Inter Milan director Beppe Marotta as quoted by Sky Sport, Italy, on Sunday.
Success formula
Then, what is Conte’s success formula enabling him to “convert” Inter into a victor? “Hard work and conviction. The players had not been used to winning and becoming a champion before. I showed the way and they fully trusted in me. In the end, we found the path,” said Conte when interviewed by Italian TV channel Rai 2.
The same words were conveyed when he first trained Juventus in August 2011. Like Inter, Juve was then in a fiasco as an impact of the flight of their stars following the calciopoli (match fixing) scandal. Far from a champion, let alone dominating Italy, Juve was an inferior team. Juve finished twice successively in seventh place of the Italian League, right before Conte appeared.
Thanks to his drive, in its first season under Conte, the Turin club directly smashed the oligopoly of AC Milan and Inter Milan. “The Old Lady” won the scudetto of the 2011-2012 season. Surprisingly, they won the invincible status from 38 Italian League matches in the season. No wonder, some Juve fans called him “the savior”. His name was perpetuated on the floor of Juventus Stadium to fill the Walk of Fame along with other legends of the club like Zinedine Zidane, Alessandro Del Piero, Dino Zoff and Paolo Rossi.
So, when he accepted the offer to train Inter in 2019, Conte was cornered. He almost lost his friends and was hated by some hardline supporters of Juve who considered him a traitor for being prepared to train a rival team. He even reportedly had once received a murder threat. Conversely, supporters of Inter found it hard to accept it because of the past close ties with Juve as a former player, team captain and coach.
At the end of November, thousands of Inter supporters called for the dismissal of Conte through the #Conteout movement, which became a hot topic on Twitter. In fact, several months earlier, he brought Inter back to a respectable place through the European League final and Italian League runner-up achievements. But as usual, he was unwavering. He made the criticism a whip to strive to perform better.
The whip was also unhesitatingly applied by Conte to his players. In the presence of Conte, his players, including those in Inter, lose their comfort zone. Inter’s striker, Romelu Lukaku, for instance, described the atmosphere of training with Conte as none other than a battlefield. Inter players were subjected to harsh physical training until they vomited. But instead of just giving orders, Conte also set good examples to follow.
Every day I tell them [the players] that the team’s glory should be given priority over individual success.
He seldom sleeps soundly at night, merely thinking of his team’s tactics. His whole life is devoted to football. Andrea Pirlo once jokingly regarded Conte as having “two wives” as he often spends the night in his office. His first wife is Elisabetta Muscarello and his second spouse is football.
For Conte, achievements and trophies are something that will impress and be remembered forever, outweighing wealth and property. Unsurprisingly, he admonished his former trainee in Juve, Gianluigi Buffon, when he intervened in a discussion on the video recording of a would-be opponent’s performance. At the time, Buffon proposed a bonus for the success in emerging as an Italian League champion beyond prediction in 2012.
“Every day I tell them [the players] that the team’s glory should be given priority over individual success,” said Conte, the perfectionist coach known for his strong character and strict discipline, as quoted by AFP.
Yet the future of Conte remains a mystery. He isn’t yet committed to staying with Inter. Possibly he will shift to other clubs to pursue new challenges, by transforming other losers in order to rise to victory.
Antonio Conte
Born: Lecce, Italy, 31 July 1969
Coaching career:
- 2007-2009: Bari
- 2009-2010: Atlanta
- 2010-2011: Siena
- 2011-2014: Juventus
- 2014-2016: Italian national team
- 2016-2018: Chelsea
- 2019-2020: Inter Milan
Achievements include:
- Italian League Champion, Serie A (2012, 2013, 2014 and 2021)
- Italian Super Cup (2012 and 2013)
Awards include:
- Italian League Best Coach, Serie A (2012, 2013 and 2014)